Personalized cosmetic products, such as shampoo, skin creams, lipstick, etc. have long been used by customers and patients to enhance their physical health and appearance. Many customers and patients, however, select a personalized product based on their perceived needs or recommendations from other persons. The selection is often not based on the specific chemistry of the customer or patient's anatomy to which the product will be applied or used. As a result, customers and patients do not use personalized products that sufficiently address or otherwise treat, either partially, substantially or completely, their situation or condition.
The chemistry associated with a customer or patient's anatomy, or a cosmetic treatment, formulation, food/diet, dosage form, etc. can be obtained using conventional analytical tools and methodology. But, such conventional tools and methodology is labor intensive and time consuming, and not amenable to a real-time analysis. For example, current test methods include gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Analysis by GC-MS requires a multi-step procedure for sample preparation, e.g., hydrolysis and derivatization, and a chromatographic separation. Alternatively, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) can be used for the direct measurement of various compounds without the need for hydrolysis or derivatization. LC-MS still requires the labor intensive and time consuming chromatographic separation step. Supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry and other similar techniques can also be used, but these techniques also suffer from the same requirement.
The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatus for screening the chemistry of dermatological and cosmetic related samples which are less time consuming and resource intensive.